beasts altered

i finally got a dreamcast (just in time for its 10th birthday). continuing the trend, instead of starting off playing one of the classics i ended up playing something totally random, more specifically, one of the sega genesis games that appear on the sega smash pack compilation, the now-classic altered beast.

i’m pretty much a n00b when it comes to sega and its long and colorful history. the genesis version of altered beast was apparently the original pack-in game for the system in most areas outside of japan and is well known, although nowadays it seems to be among the many games that are universally panned (see poor milon’s secret castle as another example, which i recently reviewed). for a sample of modern-day reviews and people’s comments on altered beast, nintendolife.com has reviews of both the the original arcade version as well as the genesis version. both reviewers give the game the same score (3 out of 10), although the latter review seems to contain more nostalgic affection. for a run-down of the game itself, check out this page at i-mockery.com.

having no such nostalgia factor but having a much higher tolerance for old games and their flaws, i actually quite enjoyed this one. the “homoeroticism” is clearly just that peculiar brand of japanese humor that takes the form of extreme camp, which i found amusing, even more so when i contemplate the nations full of confused kids and their baffled parents that must have resulted. i was also entertained by the complete disregard for actual greek mythology (not unlike the classic kid icarus). the graphics are definitely impressive, keeping in mind this was almost exactly two years before super mario world was released for the SNES, and the character, enemy, and boss designs are all pretty well done. the enemies in particular are entertaining, with some classic japanese wackiness thrown in, e.g. the purple jump-kicking unicorns and yellow goats in the final level. i wasn’t bothered by the slowness of the gameplay, and although there’s not much variety in the main attacks they were still varied enough to make them worthwhile. the “altered beasts” and their attacks were the best part, and although i didn’t find the game to be overly repetitive, at five levels the game is definitely quite short; i would’ve definitely enjoyed another level with each of the beast forms. the ending is anticlimactic and the harder difficulties not much different than the normal mode, but the co-op was fun and the soundbites have added some classic quotes to my repertoire (the apparently much-appreciated “wise from your gwave!” as well as the baddie’s sinister “welcome to your doom!”).

i’ve settled on a few simple rubrics to help me rank games, including “would i want to play this again?” and “did i like this enough to check out some of the sequels?” for me the answer to both of those questions is actually yes. and it turns out that there are a coupla sequels, and they’ve been catalogued by the good folk at hardcore gaming 101. sweeeeet. i mean, roooooaaaaarrrrr!!!

altered links:
- cheats at gamefaqs, including how to continue and select a level and difficulty
- screenshots of the ending at vgmuseum.com
- entry at wikipedia
- random page with sprites
- FAQ at gamefaqs (although no one probably really needs it)

shake those wiimotes!

i was never really into sega growing up (nintendo fanboy that i am, even back then) and am only now slowly working my way through the backlog of great sega games. i’d been intrigued for a while by the wii-make of samba de amigo, which came out in the US last september (although it has yet to make an appearance in japan, oddly enough). usually i like to play earlier iterations of a game before later ones, but after spending a fair amount of time trying to find a pair of the original dreamcast maracas on ebay i gave up and decided to jump into the wii version, particularly since i’m planning on taking the game home to play with my family in a couple of weeks.

the game’s mechanics are immediately appealing, but i quickly ran into the problem that everyone complains about, which is the accuracy of the controls, particularly at the higher levels of difficulty. i was really curious if reviewers’ complaints were fair or not, and for a fair amount of time i was undecided. on easier levels the controls are pretty forgiving, but on harder levels i was definitely having a lot of trouble getting my movements to register. but i couldn’t believe that a powerhouse studio like sega would ship a product with broken controls, so instead of giving up and declaring the game faulty i tried a lot of different things.

eventually i figured out how to get the controls to work pretty much perfectly, and now the only thing that mystifies me is: 1) why so many reviewers (such as IGN’s; yet again, IGN proves to be a poor source of information and my interest in them continues to wane even further) didn’t bother spending the time figuring out how to make the controls work. granted, maybe these people were used to the dreamcast controllers, but it can’t be that hard to figure out the wii controls because, judging by the leaderboards, apparently tons of people other than i have independently figured out how to make them work; and 2) why sega didn’t include a tutorial on how to use the controls properly. because once you understand how the controls actually work, the game is an absolute blast.

in case you too need tips on how to use the controls, it’s really simple. there are three positions: high, medium, low. the game registers positions based on the tilt of the controllers, so for the high position hold the controllers straight up, and then to shake tilt them down (i.e. away from you). for the medium position, hold them flat in front of you and perpendicular to the floor, and to shake just tilt them down (towards the ground). and lastly, for the low position, hold the controllers straight down, and to shake just tilt them towards the wall behind you. to do crossovers (the remotes pointing in the same direction), your arms (and your wiimotes) should actually be crossed over for them to register correctly.

and that’s it! the controls work extremely well with this setup, although i’m really curious to see if others have come to the same conclusion. anyway, as i said, once i figured out the correct way to use the controls the game was (and continues to be) incredibly fun and addictive. as anyone who may have been reading this blog may have noticed, i don’t give out high praise that often, but this game is frickin’ awesome and is a great example of what the wii is all about. i’ve been getting really bored with guitar hero-style gameplay, so this was a real breath of fresh air. the wackiness of the design and the fact that you’re frickin’ shaking your wiimotes like maracas to spanish songs and random songs like “groove is in the heart” thrown in makes this classic, totally stupid fun. as a party game this is an absolute no-brainer, and the new “dance” moves added to this edition just add to the ridiculousness of it. and on my version of miyamoto’s “wife-o-meter” (i.e. the “bf-o-meter”) this was a definite win (and i have some embarassing photos to prove it!).

this is one time i’ve been tempted to buy a game’s downloadable content. at some point i probably will, but in the meantime i A-ranked about 1/3 of the songs on the hard level. but after playing the game day after day for hours on end my arms were getting frickin’ tired; this has got to be the biggest workout i’ve gotten from playing with my wii yet (hahaha). the one complaint i have about the game is that when you make one mistake you drop a rank, so getting an A rank is sometimes artificially hard since you pretty much have to get the last section perfect with no time to recover from even one mistake. but i suppose it’s all just part of the challenge. the fact that you can do crossovers on single notes to up your points adds even more depth to the game, but the game mechanics themselves are just fun, no matter what the level of difficulty. i’ve set the game aside for now, but this is one that i’m definitely looking forward to coming back to. samba!

shake to these samba links!
- entry at wikipedia including a table comparing the different songs in the different versions
- page at metacritic. it’s noteworthy that ye olde nintendo power gave the game the highest score (a 9 out of 10) and just goes to show that yet again NP and i are on the same wavelength.
- random blog post of someone who also came to the same conclusion that i did: “… the controls are great. Early reviewers were either: a) bad at the game, b) confused or c) lazy.” i’m voting for C on that one. he suggests experimenting with the calibration option, but i didn’t try messing around with that much.
- there’s an official site here. doesn’t have much, but includes some wallpapers, screenshots, and a video previewing the first download pack.

dead-ly house

i got a copy of the house of the dead 2 and 3 return completely randomly, and not being big on light-gun shooters in general i didn’t play the game for quite awhile. (in case you don’t know, the game’s a wiimake of two games that were apparently popular in the arcade but which i’d never encountered previously.) i was looking for a co-op game to play with the significant other, and so even though neither of us are even into zombies that much i thought it might be fun.

and actually, it was fun. at first we alternated between HotD2 and HotD3, but it didn’t take long to find out that HotD2 is significantly harder, so we ended up focusing on HotD3. the game is set up so that as you play the game more, you unlock settings that give you more continues and more life, as well as additional difficulty options. there’s a cap on the maximum number of continues you can choose (9), and continues are shared between the players. my SO, being a n00b, used up the majority of the continues so that even on “very easy” we had trouble getting to the end. a classic example of a game with a co-op mode that doesn’t take into account the players’ differing levels of ability, but when i beat the game twice on very easy on my own it unlocked unlimited continues for HotD3; so then we played through it one more time to beat it together. teamwork, awww.

i enjoyed HotD3 overall. the dialogue is intentionally cheesy and entertaining, and the enemies are amusing, and the graphics aren’t anything flashy and don’t feel too dated. the main problem i have with the gameplay is that the bulk of the game is fairly mindlessly easy, but the boss levels are suddenly much harder, even once you’ve learned the patterns. (even with all my playthroughs i was never able to fully master the sloth boss. alas.)

comparing it to HotD2, from my experience (and i think most people agree) the latter is definitely superior. the branching paths in HotD2 keep the game feeling fresh, and saving civilians adds to the gameplay’s variety. having to sit down and master all the boss fights made me reluctant to try to beat the game, though, so i didn’t bother. i did some of the training exercises for variety, which provided a nice change of pace. the wii version of HotD2 has a new mode to enhance the original arcade mode: in the new mode you can use a couple of powerups to compensate for the limited number of continues, but i didn’t end up exploring those options very much. the main complaint about the package as a whole seems to be that both games only offer up limited continues (for example, in this review at 1up), but i don’t have a problem with that, assuming that HotD2 provides the same mechanism to unlock unlimited continues, i.e. by beating the game a couple of times on any difficulty level, including very easy. the effort makes the victory that much sweeter. haha.

last thing: i tried the wii zapper, and i liked the stability it added to my aim, although i wasn’t completely satisfied with the weight of it, or the feel of the trigger. for light gun games that don’t use the nunchuk the wii zapper is certainly not ideal. at some point i’ll try nyko’s wii perfect shot gun, which seems to have gotten good reviews.

in any case, the house of the dead 2 and 3 return was a surprisingly good release and is certainly recommended, even though HotD3 is fairly shallow and mindless. the wii release has also gotten me interested in the series as a whole. not enough to run out and get the wii’s followup, the house of the dead: overkill, but i’m definitely going to pick up the pinball of the dead and i’m definitely going to track down a copy of the typing of the dead. eventually!

dead-ly links in da house:
- entry at wikipedia
- a glowing review at videogamecritic.net
- entry at metacritic

HotD3-specific links:
- FAQ of the xbox version: includes a fair number of the quotes from the game, including the classic, “a security guard? you gotta be kidding!”
- entry at wikipedia: has info on the four endings

super monkey bawlin’

i’ve been playing the original super monkey ball off and on for a while now, but i sat down and finished advanced mode and tackled expert mode … only to be completely waylaid by expert level 7. apparently this is one of the harder levels in the game, and although i was finally able to beat it in practice mode, i was so demoralized at the thought of having to beat it again and again and again that i set the game aside for now. but it should be noted that levels that i had trouble with in advanced mode became pretty easy after i played through them numerous times, so it’s likely that i’ll eventually master that level as well as the rest of the game given enough time.

aside from the painful level of difficulty there was a lot i enjoyed. first off, it’s always nice to see a new IP, and sega scored an immediate hit with their debut of the monkey ball series. the presentation has the same unique combination of stylish/cool/cute that sega has become known for. the difficulty can perhaps be attributed to sega as well, although it’s notable that amusement vision, a subsidiary of sega, also worked on the similarly painfully-difficult-but-fun-and-stylish f-zero GX, which i played a while back. this game is also known for including a slew of much-better-than-average party games, including monkey fight which i became somewhat addicted to (probably one of the few party games that i’ve gotten hooked on).

it’s also notable that this was a launch title for the gamecube, because the controls are so spot on and the graphics are pretty solid. i’m curious about how the versions on the other platforms fared, because the gamecube analog control stick proved to be nice and sensitive, although at times it felt a bit too large and thus awkward under my thumb. maybe i just have small hands. i also appreciated the fact that given enough playthroughs eventually you’ll unlock unlimited continues, making getting to the higher levels much less of a remote possibility (although to unlock everything you still have the challenge of making it through on one life or one continue). at times i felt that this game should’ve been called “a million and one ways to watch a monkey fall off of a cliff”, but in any case, i’ll definitely be coming back to this one and checking out the various sequels.

monkey bawlin’ links:
- FAQ at IGN with difficulty ratings for each level and one at gamefaqs with ASCII maps
- a monkey fight FAQ
- list of unlockables at IGN
- the game got a lot of great reviews, all acknowledging the huge difficulty. here are nintendojo’s and IGN’s.
- entry at wikipedia
- entry at metacritic